


Diagon Alley

by Yatorihell



Series: In The Darkness [15]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, ノラガミ | Noragami
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yatorihell/pseuds/Yatorihell
Summary: Second arc of the Harry Potter AU!Hiyori bumps into someone familiar in Diagon Alley as she prepares for her second year at Hogwarts.Thank you Gio (the_musical_alchemist) for beta-ing me!For the 1st anniversary of the Harry Potter AU <3Art by Pip for the anniversary - http://paperypiper.tumblr.com/post/164901972472/yatorihell-congrats-on-one-year-of-putting-these





	Diagon Alley

**Author's Note:**

> I also have a trivia series for the AU which I update every now and then with facts about the characters. I’ve also started doing arc summaries for people who want to do recaps of what’s happened or catch up quicker as I get further into the story. 
> 
> You can find it on my page under In The Darkness: Trivia.

Detached from wizarding life, Hiyori’s summer resulted in long, lazy days of completing assignments and catching up with old friends. Smartly avoiding questions of her ‘private school’, Hiyori recounted stories of what she had been up to, minus the magic and mishaps, to both her old friends and her parents.

Her letters home throughout the school year didn’t include the numerous occasions that would make her mother faint with horror, and her father pull her out of the school altogether. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Her father was much more relaxed and, unlike her mother, embraced her interest in a break-neck sport where enchanted balls battered players and left them hospitalised. So much so that once she greeted her parents after returning to Kings Cross Station, they had gone to Diagon Alley and gifted Hiyori a Nimbus 2000 – and a lot of protective clothing – for her birthday.

Unable to practice, Hiyori admired the broom which had been propped up in the corner of her bedroom, anticipating the moment she would be able to ride it - and hopefully not smash it into smithereens.

Although she had stayed in contact with Aimi and Yama throughout the summer, Hiyori had no contact with Yukine nor Yato as they hadn’t mentioned any addresses. She wasn’t even sure if they had owls.

It didn't matter now though as the next school year was just around the corner.

Returning to Diagon Alley in late August (through a suspicious looking pub entitled The Leaky Cauldron), Hiyori and her family collected the next load of books she would need for her second year at Hogwarts.

Her parents were sidetracked the moment they left the bookshop by the allure of the other bizarre shops they had been too terrified to step foot in the first time they had collected her school supplies.

Hiyori gave up on trying to drag her mother away from gazing at the array of neon coloured bottles in Madam Primpernelle's Beautifying Potions shop window, whereas her father was opposite reading the strange flavours of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

Hiyori stared down the barren alley. Its lopsided cobbled path trailing down and forking off in different paths. The first years had ransacked the shops the moment they received their acceptance letter, gathering all the equipment they would need to see them through the oncoming term.

Amongst the few pointy-hatted wizards towing children and gatherings of fellow students, Hiyori could see a single figure walking alone, head bowed and carrying a bag over their shoulder.

They barely brushed past Hiyori in the narrow street, not even looking up as she acknowledged them. They seemed familiar, the bag tied shut with string and the dark shock of hair which concealed their face.

Someone familiar…

“Yato?”

He stopped abruptly, stiffening under their black robe before slowly turning their head.

His hair was dishevelled, clumps of it sticking up to give him the appearance that a fan of jet black peacock had erupted from his head. Untameable bangs fell over his wide-eyed stare when he caught sight of Hiyori.

“Hiyori?”

Hiyori couldn’t help but notice the blue of his eyes being especially sharp in contrast to the dark circles that had taken hold under his eyes, almost as if he hadn’t slept in a week. Her stare didn’t go unnoticed as Yato quickly patted his hair and forced a smile.

“Are you,” Hiyori began, about to say exactly what she had been thinking, but was cut off by the voice of her mother interrupting their encounter.

“Who’s this?” The question snapped both of their attention to Hiyori’s parents who stared at Yato with the curiosity of a hawk.

“Ah.” Hiyori threw a glance between Yato and her parents. If this was the first time they were meeting a bonafide wizard, they were in for a surprise.

“This is Yato, and these are my parents,” Hiyori said, shuffling nervously. She had left his name out of the letters, mainly because he was the cause of the trouble she got into.

“Oh, a friend of yours, dear?” Mr Iki said with a good-natured smile, unlike his wife who regarded Yato’s disheveled appearance the same way a teacher would with an unruly child.

Hiyori muttered a ‘yes’. I suppose we’re friends, she thought as she cast a glance at Yato who stood unusually quiet on the spot. After a beat of silence only filled by the sounds of the street, her mother spoke.

“What a… curious boy,” Mrs Iki didn’t hide the apprehensiveness in her voice, yet her choice of words was gentler than the ones she would’ve chosen had they just passed in the street.

“Wouldn’t you say, dear…”

Mr Iki’s short attention span had been snatched in this exchange when his wife tried to involve him in the conversation, the sight of a rundown second-hand store window compelling him to distractedly agree. With an idle farewell to Yato he tugged his wife’s hand to follow him to the shop window, perhaps to bicker over buying more padding to ‘protect their daughter’, though Hiyori doubted the dented helmets would do any protecting.

Just as Hiyori repressed a smile upon hearing the first complaints begin. She turned back to Yato, who looked less uncomfortable now they were gone.

“Well I won’t keep you.” Yato bowed his head slightly, gaze travelling as if distracted so that he could go on his way, wherever he was going.

Hiyori’s brow creased again when she looked at his appearance more closely, seeing the grime on his chin and the mud splatters which were almost invisible against the black cloth.

“Yato, is everything ok?” Hiyori asked, stepping in time with him as he took his first steps away.

Yato looked at her levelly, the wide smile that he had given her a few moments ago drastically reduced to a thin line.

“Peachy.” There was a tone of cynicism in his voice as he readjusted his bag on his shoulder, giving her parents another glance before starting to walk again with no farewell.

Hiyori watched him, robes flutter around his feet as quick paces took him up the thoroughfare.

“See you in September!” she called out to him.

Yato raised his hand in acknowledgment but didn’t bother turning, instead vanishing around the corner and out of sight.

 

~

 

Just like the first time Hiyori stepped onto Platform 9 ¾, there was a havoc of students sending whirling sparks of red, blue and white which fizzled and banged above her head.

The occasional shower of tattered paper with each collision of flare and paper butterflies which flitted around. Crumpled twists of paper lay scattered on the ground, revealing themselves to be broomsticks when they shuddered back to life and reshaped, only to begin jousting each other overhead and battering what looked like a rusted Knut in the stead of a Quaffle.

The pierced whistle of the Hogwarts Expressed drowned out Hiyori’s shout when she managed to see Yukine through the cluster of students and spilling heaps of luggage that waited to be loaded, but she managed to catch his shoulder in time before he vanished into the near-crowded train. She was met by a confused scowl at the sudden grab, but Yukine’s expression dissolved into a dorky smile the moment he saw Hiyori.

It turned out that Yato was already with him, holding the door of an empty carriage open and beckoning them over the squeals and shrieks of overexcited first years and lairy students who would wreak havoc in what would be their final year at Hogwarts.

Hiyori greeted Yato, deciding not to mention their encounter in Diagon Alley when Yukine exclaimed that they hadn’t seen each other in months. He was much cleaner than he was that day, dressed in his robes already and not as dishevelled as he normally would be. Perhaps she could ask about it in private.

They crashed into the cabin and shut the door to block the new wave of magical dangers, a summer of restricted magic finally crushed by shouts of ‘periculum’ and ‘relashio’ as students sent sparks flying and lit up the train as if it were Bonfire Night.

At exactly 11 o’clock the Hogwarts Express pulled away from the platform, gathering speed as it took its passengers out of London and replaced the stagnant scenery with rolling hills and lochs that carved rivers through the valleys.

Hiyori sat beside Yukine, with Yato opposite him next to the window just like they were when they returned to London. Nostalgia flooded through Hiyori as she remembered her first time on the Hogwarts Express, new friends cramming her head with knowledge and fantasies of the school she was going to. The Sorting seemed like it had only happened a few months ago rather than a year.

“This time last year we were going to get sorted,” Hiyori turned and nudged Yukine, to which he hummed and looked out of the window.

“I don’t remember seeing you, though,” Hiyori continued thoughtfully, undiscouraged by the lack of chat. Before Yukine could reply, Yato cut in.

“He’s like 4ft tall, of course you didn’t see him,” Yato breezed with an idle grin. Yukine didn’t bother turning, instead favouring to flip his middle finger at Yato.

“I thought Hufflepuffs were nice.” Yato grinned, leaning back further in his seat so his back was pressed into the corner, arms folded. “Still, I guess not all houses are like admired like mine.”

“No wonder you’re a Slytherin,” Yukine shot back, “you think you’re the best house.”

“Yes, but I was nearly a Gryffindor,” Yato said simply.

Yukine and Hiyori stared at him. A silence followed this revelation, neither of the pair knowing whether he was serious or not when he gave them a sly grin.

“What?!” Hiyori spluttered.

The very idea that Yato would be put in Gryffindor was alien to her. He certainly didn’t strike her as someone who would fit into her house as well as others. He and Bishamon were polar opposites, and it was clear she was a Gryffindor through and through. Surely that would put him in the house of their main rival?

“I chose Slytherin. The Sorting Hat couldn’t decide if I should go to Gryffindor or Slytherin, so I asked to be in Slytherin.” Yato explained this so plainly as if he were discussing the weather.

“Why the hell did you choose Slytherin?” Yukine asked, still doubtful even though he had heard that some students were given a choice of what house to be in. The Sorting Hat did take their choice into account. 

“I want to be great.” He looked Yukine in the eye when he said this, evidently being honest at this proclamation.

Hiyori gave him a quizzical look. _Great?_

Yato’s eyes slid from Yukine’s to Hiyori, then back to the window. “The most powerful wizards have come from there, so it makes sense.”

“Evil,” Yukine cut in. That word was one of the most used descriptions of any wizard who is put into Slytherin, even if they weren’t necessarily bad.

“Powerful,” Yato corrected sharply. His eyes fixed on some point in the distance through the window when he lowly continued.

“No one is evil unless they’ve done something unforgiveable. I don’t think many eleven-year olds have done something bad enough to make them be put in a house supposedly tailored for those who would become dark wizards.”

The silence that spread over the cabin was infectious, Yato’s reasoning held some truth. How could the Sorting Hat see darkness in the heart of a child and decide that they would flourish in a house which favoured the Dark Arts? It would just be a breeding ground for psychopaths. ‘Evil’ was never stated as a quality that Salazar Slytherin desired, only ambition – which in turn could morph into something crazed and lustful that would make the brightest student turn their resourcefulness to darker means if it meant they could reach their goal.

The cogs in Hiyori’s mind put it all together – what it meant to be a Slytherin, and how Yato would fit into Gryffindor. The more she thought about it, the more traits matched up. Yato was an idiot – but a reckless one. Brave to the point of stupidity when it came to facing off against a mountain troll, daring enough to break into the library past curfew, and nerves to do whatever it takes to catch the Golden Snitch. Godric Gryffindor himself would be proud, but it looked like Yato’s own desire for ambition, and perhaps his cunning traits to meet his own ends, had thrown the Sorting Hat to let Yato choose his own house.

After the prolonged silence, Yato quietly spoke. “You don’t think I’m bad, do you?”

“No.”

Yato hummed quietly at the answer. Of course that was Hiyori’s immediate response, and Yukine’s too as he shook his head. Yato hadn’t done anything bad. Questionable, but not bad, and always to help them, be it facing off bullies, trolls, or helping with homework in his own way.

They were quiet for a long time before the awkwardness was broken by the arrival of the sweet trolley, allowing Yato to set a couple of chocolate frogs and jelly slugs free to make Hiyori shriek whilst Yukine blew multi-coloured bubbles of gum.

Maybe this year Hiyori would get over her fear of sweets.

 

~

 

The sun had completely sunk into the hills when the Hogwarts Express groaned to a stop at the small station of Hogsmeade. Like before, Kuraha rounded up the terrified first years and herded them towards the lake where they would make an impressive trek to the impossible castle-topped cliffs.

Unlike first years – who would take the longer scenic route to the castle –, the trio and the rest of the school made their short walk to the wrought iron entrance gate of the school grounds. Guarded by the statues of two winged boars, the same carriages that had taken them away from the castle a few months prior waited to take them back again. Yukine stuck nearly uncomfortably close to Hiyori’s side for the whole walk, only breaking away to clamber onto the nearest carriage and beckon Hiyori up beside him.

Yato looked cautiously at the space where a horse would be tethered to pull their carriage along, as if he could see something the others could not. With a sharp jolt once he had mounted the steep steps onboard, the carriage clattered on the trail towards to the castle.

Rocking and swaying over dry bracken and looking up at the darkened canopy of trees which hid the stars, Yato’s lips tugged into a small smile.

He was home. 

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago there was some discourse on my Tumblr over me Yato being sorted into Slytherin 'because he's evil'. Yato's speech about this in this chapter reflects that stereotype I'm trying to break (as well as the fact that Harry Potter was split between Gryffindor and Slytherin and chose Gryffindor. Think of it as an AU of if Harry chose Slytherin too for the whole 'greatness' thing).
> 
> It's also an important plot point which I can't talk much about, but trust me, Yato isn't Slytherin because 'it's the evil house'.


End file.
